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  • Cameraman Uladzimir Luniou: ‘I didn’t belive we would get out of there alive’

    A cameraman Uladzimir Luniou was filming peaceful protest actions in Minsk. On August 10, he was besieged by police near the ‘Pushkinskaya’ metro station. He was detained at about 11.30 pm, despite wearing a vest with the word “Press” and trying to explain that he was an independent journalist.

    According to the reporter, he was kept 'in inhumane conditions' in custody for 34 hours.  He was released later, but his personal belongings were not returned to him. Moreover, he had to visit the detention center again, in order to get his passport back. The court ruling of August 21 has not been sent to him yet.

    ‘Did you want a revolution? Now we will arrange it for you!’

    Uladz­imir Luniou dwelt upon his deten­tion by riot police:

    ‘When the deten­tions start­ed, I was stand­ing near the ‘Sport-Tourism’ store in Pry­tyt­s­ki Street. I was wear­ing a vest, and riot police­men saw the “Press” inscrip­tion. I noti­fied five riot police offi­cers in hel­mets and with batons that I was a jour­nal­ist. How­ev­er, they knocked me off my feet and start­ed beat­ing me and shout­ing: ‘Did you want a rev­o­lu­tion? Now we will arrange it for you!’ They were con­vinced that I was a ‘rev­o­lu­tion­ary’ hired for mon­ey, and they beat me on my legs, arms, back, and on my head… Then the five of them ran on, but three oth­er riot police­men approached me. Then four more riot police­men came to me. The beat­ings and insults con­tin­ued, but I could no longer object or even move. One of the riot police­men start­ed shout­ing at me, forc­ing me to turn on my stom­ach, the sec­ond police­man ordered me to turn on my back, the third police­man forced me me to get up, the fourth police­man told me to get on my knees… I did­n’t know what order to obey, and I was dragged into a police van…’

    A back­pack and a mobile phone were seized from the jour­nal­ist near the police wag­on. He recalls that there were already a lot of peo­ple inside, but the police­men shoved more and more peo­ple into the car. An elec­tric shock­er was used against one per­son, who could not fit and he was pushed to the police van with the use of bru­tal force.

    ‘You were sent to us to arrange the Maidan. We will kill you!’

    Accord­ing to Uladz­imir Luniou, the ride in the police van took 30–40 min­utes. The car stopped in a prison yard, where the detainees were beat­en again. Accord­ing to the reporter, the riot police was beat­ing every­one, even the cit­i­zens of oth­er coun­tries.

    ‘A guy in a red T‑shirt was inter­ro­gat­ed next to me. Two female police­men, two plain­clothes offi­cers and an armed sol­dier with a machine gun were stand­ing near­by. The guy said that he was a cit­i­zen of Ukraine and had a res­i­dence per­mit in Belarus. He was imme­di­ate­ly clob­bered with the curs­es: ‘You were sent to us to arrange the Maid­an. We’ll kill you now!’ The guy was beat­en so hard that he could not get up.

    Then they took me. They clob­bered and asked me who I worked for and how much I was paid. When led back, I could no longer step on one foot. One arm was also swollen, as the hands were tight­ly tied dur­ing the inter­ro­ga­tion. They guid­ed me to a room, took all my things from my pock­ets, my belt and laces. Then, I was brought into a cell, about 20 sq.m. A lot of men, 20–40 y.o., were already there. Some old­er peo­ple were there, too. All of them had been detained in dif­fer­ent parts of Min­sk. And all of them had been beat­en to vary­ing degrees. Mean­while, new detainees were brought up. Screams and bangs were heard in the cor­ri­dor. Quite a few peo­ple asked for water, but it was brought very rarely. The cell was over­crowd­ed.

    Only those peo­ple who found them­selves near the wall could sit down, the oth­ers were stay­ing.   We were tak­en out into the yard and inter­ro­gat­ed again at about 3 a.m. Among oth­er, we were asked about the rea­sons of our par­tic­i­pa­tion in the ral­ly. Also, they want­ed to know who paid us. Then we were tak­en back to the cell. Those who were out­raged or sim­ply begged for water were tak­en out and beat­en. The staff screamed for a doc­tor from time to time, when they saw that some­one felt real­ly bad.’

    The jour­nal­ist says that he heard about the deten­tion of his col­leagues. «We were film­ing a sto­ry from the polling sta­tion», he heard them say­ing in the cor­ri­dor. The col­leagues were also beat­en black and blue. Also, he heard human voic­es from some­where ask­ing to release them from cus­tody.  After that, some of the peo­ple were pulled out of the cells and beat­en again.

    A lot of people covered their ears with their hands not to hear the screams

    Uladz­imir Luniou recalls that all peo­ple around com­plained of pain in their legs, as every­one was beat­en with batons at the moment of deten­tion. Some­body suf­fered from an epilep­tic seizure in the next cell. Some peo­ple faint­ed. There were patients with dia­betes and hyper­ten­sion among the detainees, too. How­ev­er, med­ical care was pro­vid­ed at ran­dom with delays. It became cold in the cell in the evening. The peo­ple stood back to back in order to sur­vive. Some detainees suf­fered from tantrums and even hal­lu­ci­na­tions, caused by hunger and lack of sleep.

    The detained peo­ple were trans­ferred to small­er cells on the fol­low­ing day only. There were 16 peo­ple in the cell where Uladz­imir Luniou was tak­en to. One could at least sit down or even lie down there. It was heard that new pris­on­ers were brought in every half an hour. They were beat­en, tor­tured, and humil­i­at­ed.

    ‘A lot of peo­ple cov­ered their ears with their hands not to hear the screams. All that con­tin­ued till ear­ly in the morn­ing. Then we were ordered to go to the cor­ri­dor, and some people’s sur­names were pro­nounced. These peo­ple were tak­en out. They weren’t noti­fied where they were tak­en to. The remain­ing detainees were brought back to the cells. After a while they start­ed shout­ing names again and I heard mine. We were gath­ered in the cor­ri­dor, it was already light, and traces of blood were clear­ly seen on the walls.’

    We were warned that they would destroy us if they caught us again

    Accord­ing to Uladz­imir Luniou, the detained peo­ple were tak­en to some premis­es, where a police­man was sit­ting at the table and police reports were piled on the desk. The police reports were filled in the sim­i­lar way – arti­cle 23.34, part 1, ‘…par­tic­i­pat­ed in the unau­tho­rized ral­ly, shout­ed ‘Long Live Belarus!’, ‘Shame on you!’, and ‘Stop the Cock­roach!’.

    ‘I wrote that I object­ed to the state­ment. I didn’t shout any slo­gans. I didn’t par­tic­i­pate in the ral­ly. Before releas­ing us from cus­tody some­body from police author­i­ties told us that they would destroy us if they caught us again or if there would be threats to the police or their fam­i­lies. He asked us if we got it. Few peo­ple replied that they did.

    Gen­er­al­ly, all these events remind­ed me of doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cles about Nazi tor­tures dur­ing World War II. Every­thing was so severe and inhu­mane that I didn’t believe that we would get out of there alive. Also, I thought that they’d bet­ter bury us there alive, since we wouldn’t be silent. And the whole world would learn about the crimes against civil­ians in Belarus, who defend­ed their legal right to have a choice’, — the jour­nal­ist said.

    Nei­ther per­son­al belong­ings nor doc­u­ments were giv­en to Uladz­imir Luniou at once. He was released in his prison cloth­ing. The pass­port was returned to the jour­nal­ist a week lat­er. He had to go to Min­sk again to get it.

     

    Medical examination, Legal Investigative Committee, and the broken key in the keyhole

    On return to Vit­sieb­sk, Uladz­imir Luniou went to the emer­gency room of the ambu­lance hos­pi­tal. Doc­tors tes­ti­fied numer­ous soft tis­sue hematomas and report­ed the fact of treat­ment to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee.

    The jour­nal­ist was sum­moned for inter­ro­ga­tion, his tes­ti­mo­ny was record­ed and he was sent for foren­sic exam­i­na­tion. A more detailed descrip­tion of the injuries was done there. Uladz­imir Luniou does not know the results of these inves­tiga­tive actions. Also, he doesn’t know the court deci­sion, which was to be pro­nounced dur­ing a tri­al ses­sion in Min­sk on August 21, as it was stat­ed in the police report. The jour­nal­ist decid­ed to ignore the tri­al, since he did not con­sid­er him­self guilty.

    Uladz­imir Luniou told about anoth­er unpleas­ant inci­dent that hap­pened on August 29. He noticed that the lock on the door of his apart­ment was not work­ing in the morn­ing. Some­body insert­ed the wrong key into the hole and broke it, block­ing the journalist’s fam­i­ly inside. The jour­nal­ist can’t say for sure whether this inci­dent is con­nect­ed with his com­plaint to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee against the police.

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